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SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW IN OBAMA’S EDUCATION PLAN -- The president brought back some familiar proposals in his two speeches on the economy, both at college campuses Wednesday. The keys to Obama's education plan: pre-K for all, college affordability, high-speed Internet in schools and libraries and a renewed focus on job training at community colleges. The pre-K and community college proposals are both recycled ideas from past budgets and policy speeches. Education advocates love them, but Congress has been lukewarm. No sign yet that Congressional Republicans are more likely to embrace a tobacco tax for early childhood education or $8 billion in new spending on community colleges than they were a year ago.

College affordability is a favorite topic for Obama’s big-ticket speeches, maybe because it’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser. (Announcing the Senate student loan deal got some of the biggest cheers of the address.) This time, he highlighted an accelerated degree program at the University of Central Missouri that lets students earn college credit while still in high school. The program hits plenty of high notes for the president -- high-tech industry, public-private partnership, debt-free graduates with high-paying jobs -- but it’s not clear what steps the federal government could take to spread those ideas nationally. POLITICO's takeaways from the big speech at Knox College: http://politi.co/14JNcSW

TOP TALKER: PRECEDENT-SETTING CASE ON TRANSGENDER TEEN IN CA -- Education Pro’s Nirvi Shah: “The U.S. Justice and Education departments said Wednesday that a transgender California student who is anatomically female but lives life as a male must be able to use school bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities designed for boys. The first-of-its-kind decision from the agencies tasks the Arcadia school district outside Los Angeles to change district policies and practices to accommodate the rising ninth-grade student. Teachers and staff must be trained in how to prevent gender discrimination, and federal agencies will be keeping tabs on the district through at least 2016.” The full story: http://politi.co/14JNcm1

GOOD THURSDAY MORNING and welcome to Morning Education, where it’s starting to feel like a frantic end to the school year as Congress crams in plenty of education legislation before recess starts next week. We’ll do everything we can to keep you caught up before the the final bell rings. Keep news tips, gossip and reactions coming to lnelson@politico.com and @libbyanelson. Follow us at @morning_edu and @POLITICOPro. And check the end of the email for contact info for the rest of the team.

SO HOW PERMANENT IS THIS COMPROMISE? -- The House is champing at the bit to pass the student loan compromise that sailed through the Senate on Wednesday, 81-18. The big question during floor debate Wednesday: What happens when interest rates climb and the compromise no longer means student borrowers are getting a bargain? Senate Republicans emphasized the bill as the permanent law of the land. Democrats hastened to say that 2017, when interest rates are projected to be higher under the new bill than they were before, is still a long way -- and a Higher Education Act reauthorization -- away. Education Pro’s Libby A. Nelson on the vote: http://politi.co/1biNaoy

--Student loan mailbag: The Senate got tepid applause from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (“While this bill is not perfect and we wish that rates could have been made even lower, it represents the best deal possible given the political realities of Washington”) and a sigh from Young Invincibles (“Unfortunately, students will pay the price for this misunderstood political victory in higher interest rates in just a few years. Our generation is not so myopic that we don’t see the impact on our younger brothers and sisters.”)

THE ‘FRAT PAC’ -- It sounds like a plot out of a sequel to “Animal House,” but fraternities’ efforts to fight anti-hazing legislation on Capitol Hill is deadly serious, Bloomberg News reports. David Glovin tells the story of a mother whose son died in a fraternity hazing and vowed to get the laws changed: “She thought she had a powerful ally in U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson, who calls herself the “Haze Buster” and backed Florida’s tough anti-hazing law as a member of the state legislature in 2005. … As Wilson vowed to deny financial aid to students who engage in hazing, Kowiak applauded. What Kowiak didn’t know was that, behind the scenes, the fraternity industry’s political arm, known as “FratPAC,” had been pressing Wilson to back off. Today, 19 months after Wilson first promised an anti-hazing bill, she hasn’t filed one...

“FratPAC today calls itself the largest political action committee focused solely on college students and higher education. FratPAC’S activity isn’t limited to Congress. It has also lobbied against U.S. Education Department guidelines for investigating sexual assaults on campus.” The full story: http://bloom.bg/14JJCIx

CONGRESSIONAL CHANGE OF PLANS -- Thursday’s markup of the House fiscal year 2014 budget for the Education Department (and other agencies), planned for 9 a.m., has been postponed. No word on when it will be rescheduled or when the bill will be released.

STATES: REPORTS OF COMMON CORE’S DEMISE GREATLY EXAGGERATED -- A survey of state education officials from 40 Common Core states finds the vast majority expect their states will stay the course with the new standards despite recent defections. The survey, from George Washington University’s Center for Education Policy: http://bit.ly/14JLbpU

KEEPING SECRETS – A lawsuit accusing the Obama administration of punching gaping loopholes in student privacy law is now in the hands of a federal judge after a lively hearing Wednesday. At issue: Regulatory tweaks made in 2011 to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. The changes allow districts and states to share student records -- disciplinary history, disabilities, free lunch eligibility and more -- with any third party working on an educational program, without parental consent.

A department official tells POLITICO that the FERPA amendments permitted only “limited sharing of student information with the appropriate safeguards.” But the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has sued to block the revisions, contends that the new loopholes are dangerous. “Students are losing control over sensitive data,” attorney Khaliah Barnes tells POLITICO. Read the legal documents: http://epic.org/apa/ferpa/

FIRST FOCUS REPORT ON FEDERAL SPENDING: A new report compiled by advocacy organization First Focus found that since 2010, when stimulus money bolstered programs for children, the share of the federal budget invested in children fell 8 percent. “Some might think this is due to all federal spending being reduced to combat the federal deficit, but the fact that the share of spending has declined shows that children have borne a disproportionate share of the cuts,” the report reads. The report [http://bit.ly/1454ZxB] looks at spending in several areas, including education programs and early childhood programs.

Wesley College in Delaware inadvertently posted data on dozens of students online, including comments like “until she learns criticism is not meant to be hurtful but helpful, she will never be a great science teacher.” The News Journal: http://delonline.us/17EEuU6